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	The Problem With Internet Advertising

By Barry Frankel, bfrankel@ix.netcom.com.

I spent a week in Mexico on vacation in January, and while I was there I did some thinking about the problem of advertising on the Internet and why it is not working and what needs to be changed to make it work.

The Internet today is as significant a change in communicating with consumers as TV was when it first came on the air.

And the problems for advertisers migrating to the Web are similar to the problem of advertisers learning that TV required different types of ads than radio.

When TV came on stream in the 50 's the networks moved their radio programs and radio advertising to TV. And the advertising didnít work!

Texaco ís idea of advertising was to move radio jingles to TV. They had four gas pump jockeys singing. Have you heard any jingles lately?

TV was neat, but all you got was radio with pictures. The new media brought you Jack Benny and Milton Berl telling their radio jokes.

Next the TV network programmers realized that TV also could do more than radio, so they resurrected Vaudeville and on Sunday nights you could see jugglers on the Ed Sullivan show.

Boring stuff, but it sold because of the thrill of the picture. Just like some of the Web sites last year. Boring old print ads, now on your PC.

Even with a little animation, Internet advertising is still boring because its still looks like a print ad. And if you stay on a page where the animation recycles every minute, you soon develop a dislike for the advertising and the advertiser.

Internet advertising is not going to work until the media realize, that in print they talk at you and the Internet is bi-directional and they can "converse" with the consumer.